This weekend, there will be sectional championships in California, a regional championship in New England, and state championships in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
And after Sunday’s games in the NYSPHSAA and NEPSAC, well, that’s all there is. The scholastic season, for the first time in my memory, is ending a full week before the collegiate season does.
How is that possible? Well, this year, Thanksgiving takes place on November 28, one of the latest dates you can have a fourth Thursday of the month.
What this means is that there is a sizable gap between the end of most states’ seasons and the annual dual events, the National Hockey Festival in Florida and the Shooting Stars tournament in Midlothian, Va. Clubs will have more than the usual time needed to train together as a group.
It used to be that that New Jersey would be the final state with state field hockey championships, and any players who were joining their club teams from the eight teams playing at the state finals at The College of New Jersey would have only about four days to prepare for the journey south to play in front of college coaches. Now, for many of the better players already in the state finals, there’s no rush on the part of themselves and their families.
It makes me wonder if this situation is just a one-time occurrence borne of a calendar quirk, or will state governing bodies of sport start altering their schedules to allow their season-ending championships to finish more than a week before the Festival and Shooting Stars? It would be a major unspoken concession to the power of club field hockey in America.
Let’s see what happens with the scholastic calendar next year and beyond before making a judgment.
